A late-night win to close out Pride Month: A federal judge has said a new anti-LGBTQ Mississippi law that would have allowed people to discriminate by citing religious beliefs is unconstitutional.
The law, HB 1523, was passed in April and set to go into effect last night. It would have allowed a broad range of discrimination, including refusal to provide foster care or adoption services, fertility services, facilities or goods for a wedding, wedding ceremonies, psychological treatment, or counseling or treatment related to gender transitioning, among other things. Federal District Court Judge Carlton Reeves stopped that from happening, however, writing:
The fact that some members of all religions oppose same-sex marriage does not mean the State is being neutral. It means the State is inserting itself into any number of intrafaith doctrinal disputes, tipping the scales toward some believers and away from others. That is something it cannot do.
And evoking (to me) The West Wing’s classic scene, he says:
It is not within our tradition to respect one clerk’s religious objection to issuing a same-sex marriage license, but refuse another clerk’s religious objection to issuing a marriage license to a formerly divorced person. The government is not in a position to referee the validity of Leviticus 18:22 (“Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.”) versus Leviticus 21:14 (“A widow, or a divorced woman, or profane, or an harlot, these shall he not take.”). Even if HB 1523 had encouraged the free exercise of all religions, it does not actually contribute anything toward that interest.
In the end, he tells us:
Religious freedom was one of the building blocks of this great nation, and after the nation was torn apart, the guarantee of equal protection under law was used to stitch it back together. But HB 1523 does not honor that tradition of religion freedom, nor does it respect the equal dignity of all of Mississippi’s citizens. It must be enjoined.
“Enjoined,” in the legal sense, means “to prohibit or restrain by an injunction.” Now I’m going to have a variation of that Schoolhouse Rock song going through my head all day: “Injunction Junction, what’s your function?”
Reeves had ruled earlier this week that the part of the law allowing clerks to refuse to issue marriage licenses was unconstitutional. Seems that ruling was just a warm up for this one (which was also argued ably by stellar attorney and lesbian mom Roberta Kaplan). The moral arc continues to bend the right way.
